We who live in Coventry, often take our city for granted. To many though, Coventry is the spiritual home of second generation Ska.

I certainly witnessed this on a recent trip to the world’s biggest city Tokyo, Japan.

One of Japan’s biggest and most influential Ska bands, The Ska Flames, were launching their new album at Tower Records (yes these amazing record shops still exist in Japan) in the incredibly busy Shinjuku area of the city.

The specials perform at Glastonbury in 2015

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I got to interview the guys before the in-store gig, and they were excited that someone from Coventry was there to see them do what they have done since the mid eighties.

Their legendary lead singer Hirokazu Ise, said of the Coventry 2-Tone Movement: “Bands like The Specials are very important to us of course, 2-Tone Records was a big influence to the growing Ska scene here in Japan the mid 1980s.

“We were one of the first to form, originally as the Blue Flame Scan, eventually becoming The Ska Flames in 1985."

”Guitarist Kenji Miyazaki said: “The Specials were important to us, and so were the first wave of Ska artists like The Skatalites, Prince Buster, Rico, Laurel Aitken, and we are proud to have supported all of these people on stage."

The band played a cut down selection from their new CD “Turn Up”, with front man Hirokazu belting out the vocals to a heady mix of guitars and brass.

Ska may not be as big news over in Japan as rock bands like The Yellow Monkey and Baby Metal, but the Ska scene is very healthy there and very much alive, and proof if it were needed was evident by the substantial audience.

I talked to Ska fans in the audience as I handed out 2-Tone Village stickers, that were received like they were something of high value.

Ska fans Koichi and Kaoru Takahashi

Koichi and Kaoru Takahashi (pictured above), a well dressed couple in the audience, told me, “We love Ska, we love The Specials and The Selecter and Coventry, this is our music”.